
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 22, 1993                   TAG: 9304220202
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WACO, TEXAS                                LENGTH: Medium

BULLET WOUNDS FOUND BUT QUESTIONS IN CULT DEATHS MOUNT

In a day of gruesome discovery, Texas Rangers sifting through the burned out Branch Davidian compound Wednesday found about 40 charred bodies. Federal authorities said three of the dead appeared to have been shot.

A spokesman for the Texas governor's office said that Wednesday was a crucial day in the investigation seeking to discover how the cult compound burned to the ground Monday afternoon, killing as many as 86 people.

"We are building a foundation today for the rest of the investigation," said Chuck McDonald of the governor's office.

Carl Stern, a spokesman for the Justice Department in Washington, said Wednesday that, of the bodies found, 10 of were women and children. He said the three people who appeared to have been shot had died recently, ruling out the possibility that they had been killed in the Feb. 28 raid by agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Presumed dead in the charred rubble is David Koresh, the cult leader who kept federal authorities at bay for 51 days before tanks began knocking holes in the compound walls Monday morning. At noon, the compound became an inferno in a matter of minutes, apparently after Koresh's aides set the frame structures ablaze.

Only nine of the cultists survived the fire. All of the 17 children under age 10 died.

Cult members making court appearances have said there was no suicide pact among the Branch Davidians, but the FBI said it has strong evidence that the fires were set throughout the compound and that lantern fuel was used to accelerate the blaze.

In Washington, meanwhile, a spokesman for President Clinton said there were "mountains of evidence" of prolonged child abuse inside the compound.

"Protecting the kids was the ultimate rationale for going in," said George Stephanopoulos, the White House communications director.

Koresh was "marrying children" and "sexually abusing children" and children were "being taught how to commit suicide, how to put guns in their mouths, how to clamp down on cyanide," Stephanopoulos said.

Mike Cox, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Wednesday that 32 Texas Rangers and as many as 30 lab technicians were working on the crime scene. The burned-out compound has been divided into a grid system, creating smaller sections that individual Rangers will be responsible for, he said.

"As you can imagine, it's a very gruesome scene," he said.

Cox said the removal of the bodies was to begin either late Wednesday or this morning. Authorities have been reluctant to move any of the corpses in the compound for fear there might be explosives and booby traps that might detonate.

The intensity of the fire virtually incinerated the occupants.

Keywords:
FATALITY

by CNB